Current Affairs

I say give' em the cell phones but keep 'em out of the cars. There's nothing more dangerous on the road than a thoughtless kid in a hot car.

If you want to get the best Hurricane Rita coverage, here's a good collection of Texas news sources and blogs.

Politicians are among those expressing amazement and dismay over the continuing racial divide in post-Katrina attitudes. Wonder how that puzzlement breaks along Democratic and Republican lines? Just asking.

Let's see. We have foreign terrorists to worry about, not to mention domestic monsters of all sorts as well as fraud and robbery and kidnapping and God knows what else, so of course we should make the FBI's new prime mission going after adult porn. If this truly is what some suspect, the attorney general's attempt to curry favor with the GOP base in hopes of a Supreme Court appointment, may he end up in Terre Haute as a public defender, representing destitute drunk-driving child molesters.

Sure, this is one of those gee-whiz studies that lets us make fun of some professional groups: Psychopaths make the best investment decisions. But let's not overlook the grain of truth in the findings: For some decisions by some people in some circumstances, it is necessary to turn off, or at least override, emotions. Think not just of high-risk investors but also of soldiers and rescuers.

I'm happy to report that the eminent-domain oafs who tried to muscle in on a group's plans for a private school, reported on yesterday, have backed off. Note that, though school officials had sent the group a "strongly worded" threatening letter, they now say it was all a "misunderstanding." Cretins.

Here is the followup story (from the same annoying newspaper site that requires registration):

Let us now praise obsessed people, at least those who are obsessed about the right things. The death of Simon Wiesenthal is a reminder that evil not only exists, it is relentless, so those who recognize it must be relentless, too. Wiesenthal could have had a more normal life, but he dedicated himself to the fight against forgetting.

Well, this is the way to do it, isn't it?

It's fine if these people want to appease fundamentalist offense-finders just to protect the bottom line, but what about the sensitivities of the rest of us? Why are they allowed to keep calling the place Burger King instead of Burger President or Burger Committee Chairperson?

When eminent domain is used to take property for actual public projects, such as roads, bridges and schools, instead of private use masquerading as public good, that's OK, right? Well, how about when a group of people spend enormous time, money and energy getting ready to build themselves a priave school, then the local school system comes along at the last minute and says, "Good idea, we think we'd like to build a school there instead"?